Some of My Best Friends are Non-Russians, Majority of Russians Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 7 – Sixty-four percent of Russian adults say that their friends include people of other nationalities, according to a new VTsIOM poll.  Fifty-two percent have friends of a different religious faith, 82 percent have friends of a different gender, 84 percent with those significantly older or younger than they are and (wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=9744).

            In reporting these findings, VTsIOM noted that “friendship among people of different nationalities” was encountered less often than friendship within the Russian nation and that friendship across religious lines was even less common.  In all cases, however, younger people were more likely to have friends different than themselves than older ones.